


Walking the Stars

by AlwaysEverlark



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rey doesn’t give up, Rey is sad, Sweet Reylo, They are so in love, WBW sort of, but she will be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23154709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysEverlark/pseuds/AlwaysEverlark
Summary: After Exegol, Rey can't find Ben but she isn't going to give up and she is going to find him, even if he's not in the same world...yet“Be with me. Be with me,” she whispers, looking at the stars while she lays down in the sand of Tatooine. It’s chilly in the desert, she knows that very well. It’s painfully similar to Jakku: the sand, the heat and the cold and the loneliness. “You are not alone,” she hears inside her head with his warm and low voice. “But I’m alone, Ben” she says to nobody, because she knows the voice she hears in her head is just a memory.The amazing art is by @ThanatosOfNicte
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42
Collections: Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2





	Walking the Stars

“Be with me. Be with me,” she whispers, looking at the stars while she lays down in the sand of Tatooine. It’s chilly in the desert, she knows that very well. It’s painfully similar to Jakku: the sand, the heat and the cold and the loneliness. “You are not alone,” she hears inside her head with his warm and low voice. “But I’m alone, Ben” she says to nobody, because she knows the voice she hears in her head is just a memory.

She closes her eyes to avoid crying and keeps with her mantra “Be with me. Be with me. Be with me, please,” picturing his beautiful smile and his silky lips under her touch and she breaks. It was too much. It was everything she always wanted; belonging, but it was over before it really started. If she knew would be their fate, she wouldn’t have closed him off for a whole year. If she would had kept faith in him, faith he would finally turn, they could have been together longer, maybe forever. It hurts too much and she doesn’t know what to do with that void in her bones, in her heart and in her soul.  
She’s heard their voices, Jedi voices but still not his, and she saw how he vanished when he became one with the Force, but she can’t feel him in the Force.

“Where are you Ben?”

She arrived a couple of weeks ago with the intention of burying Luke’s and Leia’s lightsabers and return to the Resistance headquarters, but she hasn’t been able to yet. Because they weren’t only Anakin, Luke and Leia’s sabers...they were hers and Ben’s too.

And she couldn’t say goodbye to him yet.

She goes back to the Falcon for the night, most likely another sleepless night where she plays in her head every single interaction with Ben, every single word and touch. And sometimes she smiles when she remembers how she blushed when she saw him shirtless in his room, sometimes she shivers when she remembers him saying “you” on Ahch-To, or his look in the forest when he offered to be his teacher, but mostly she cries.

The next morning she finds pending comms from the Resistance. To be honest, she’s been quite reluctant to stop her grieving to answer them. In the year between Crait and Exogol she found people thought they knew her, but they really didn’t. Only her enemy at that point knew her, wasn’t she a fool to think he was his real enemy? Yes, she was. She laughs at the irony, but it’s not a happy laugh, but more of a self-pitying laugh.

She can’t delay this call with her friends any longer, or they will come to get her on Tatooine and she isn’t ready yet to come back. She hopes Rose picks up the call, she’s the most understanding, the most empathetic… but she’s out of luck today and it’s Finn who she sees in the holo.

“Hey, how are you?” Finn asks, smiling.

“I’m fine, everything’s good. Tatooine is…like being back on Jakku, except for the binary suns,” Rey replies, feeling a bit more at ease. Maybe she was overthinking speaking with them. At the end, they were her closest friends, and they’ve been through a lot together. “How is everything there? How is everyone?”

“Not too bad...” Finn says, but he looks unconvinced and like he wants to say more.

“What’s wrong Finn?”

“Well, it’s just...I don’t remember a time where there was no war. These are confusing times. Everything’s more political, there are still First Order loyalists attacks and…I can’t understand it, Rey.” She frowns in confusion, and he continues. “What are you still doing there? What are you waiting for?”

“I told you, I needed to do this for Leia, for Luke…”

“And for Ren,” Finn interrupts her with disgust.

“Yes, and for Ben,” she says, emphasising his name, the B of his name.

“There’s a lot of things to do. You have to come back.”

“I’m not ready yet.”

“Listen. I’ve tried, but I can’t understand what ties you to Re...I mean Ben.” He corrects himself when he sees the anger in Rey’s eyes. “But whatever it was, it’s gone now. He saved you, and I’ll always be grateful for that, but he did terrible things, unforgivable things and his army is still causing trouble across the Galaxy. One life isn’t enough to compensate all his other shit.”

“It wasn’t just one life, he saved the Galaxy! I was about to surrender to Palpatine, I told you. I know what he thought, what he felt. Ben stood for what his mother and his father represented, he stood for all of us, for the Resistance, and we wouldn’t have won without him. He gave me the strength to defeat Palpatine.” Rey is nearly crying again but Finn shakes his head and then Rey snaps “I love him, but not like I love Rose, or Poe or you. I am in love with him.”

“Kriff Rey! He’s dead. What are you going to do? Date a dead man?”

“No, but some Force users appear even after their death, like Master Leia and Master Luke did..." she says with a resolution she has just found. “Finn, you’re right about something. I can’t date a dead man. So I am done waiting for him to come back to me. I am going to find Ben Solo.”

“Rey, I didn’t mean..” but Rey stops him with her hand.

“I know. I’ll come back when I find him. In the meantime, take care of everyone,” she finishes before cutting the communication off.

Rey spends the day in Mos Eisley walking around and buying some parts for the Falcon. She loves that ship, but the amount of work and pieces she needs is overwhelming sometimes. She uses that time to think too, about what she had said to Finn and she doesn’t have a clue on where to start. Maybe she can start with places that meant something to Ben and Leia: Naboo, Chandrila, Coruscant…or to Ben and Han. She can always ask Chewie or Lando, too. She smiles. This is the beginning of a plan.

With renewed hopes, she heads back to where Luke used to live, to do what she came to do and then head to her new destination. When she reaches the homestead, it’s nearly sunset again. She sets the lightsabers in a piece of fabric, which she folds around them, but before placing them in the sand she feels a presence, a known presence. She raises her eyes and stands up in a jump.  
“Master Leia,” a mixture of relief and guilt runs down her spine. She never told her about her connection with Ben, though Rey thinks she must have known.

“What are you doing here, Rey?” Leia asks, same voice, same commanding tone and that oh-so-Leia-look where kindness and mockery merge, like she knows the answer but wants you to realize the foolishness of whatever you are doing.

“What do you mean?” She asks genuinely confused.

“What are you doing here on Tatooine with those sabers?” Leia clarifies.

“Oh.” Rey blushes. “I just thought it would be a good way to honor your memory, the Skywalker memory,” and Leia snorts.

“Really? Here on Tatooine?” Rey looks at her quizzically,, she really doesn’t have a clue what Leia means. “Listen, kid. Luke hated this place. I was a slave here, Han was frozen in carbonite here. Luke told me my father hated it here, and my grandmother was assassinated here too. There’s nothing here for the Skywalkers. This is only a place of pain.”

“Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t…”

“Don’t be sorry, Rey, it’s ok, but you aren’t ok,” she says.

“Leia, I…” Her voice breaks and then she spills out everything from the beginning: about their first encounter on Takodana, the interrogation, the forest fight and how she was tempted to kill him. Their Force connections on Ahch-To, to when she joined him on the Supremacy, and how he killed Snoke to save her The Death Star fight and how she stabbed him, but then healed him, and how despite everything he came back to her, to save her from herself , from her legacy, from Palpatine, how after a minute of bliss, he died and vanished and how she’s determined to travel anywhere to find him, “and I am lost Leia. I need him and he’s gone. I call him every night and he is nowhere in the thousand of Jedi voices I can hear. Where is Ben?”

“Dear Rey,” Leia says, approaching her. “Love is painful and worthy. Believe me when I say I know everything about losses too. But Ben isn’t dead. Your dyad keeps him in a place suspended between life and death. You are always going to be together, in life and death.”

“No offense, Master, but why does our dyad matter when I can see every single Jedi but him? It feels more like a curse than a blessing…I just miss him so much.”

“Young Love,” Leia says smiling fondly, “so impatient, and so blind.” Rey frowns at that. “You have the response in front of you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve just told me, Rey. Where did you connect with my son across stars for the first time?”

“Ahch-To!” Rey exclaims. “Of course. The island is a concentration of the Force: both the dark and the light.”

“Go there kid, and tell my son I love him.” Leia leans to kiss her forehead and Rey can feel a breeze passing between them before she fades away.

Rey feels anxious during the whole trip to Ahch-To. She can’t shake the memories of what the island meant to her. The first time she went there, she had left Kylo Ren wounded on StarKiller Base, and when’d left the island, she’d gotten to see a glimpse of Ben Solo on The Supremacy. The second time, she had left Kylo Ren behind her, and she met Ben Solo on Exegol. But even more, the first image they shared was Ahch-To: the ocean and the island in that interrogation room. This was their place.

Besides that, the answer was always in the Jedi books. She found Exegol in those books, she saw Ahch-To as well, and how both places were connected by the Force, like Ben and her. She was really blind not to see it. The pain had clouded her judgement.

Fly above the island, always makes Rey sigh in awe. It’s beautiful; the deep emerald blue ocean, the lush green and rocky islands, the sun shining over it. She is happy to be here again, although she highly doubts the caretakers will share the sentiment.

She lands the Falcon on the beach, and can hear the porgs even before stepping out. It’s chilly even with the sun out, but she quickly gets warm going up the unequal stone steps. Last time she was here she didn’t see the huts, their hut. This time, though, when she’s in front of it her heart skips a beat.

She walks slowly towards the door and steps in. Memories saturate her mind. The moment they shared was so intense and feels so different now. If someone were to ask her when she fell in love with Ben Solo, she would say when she heard him saying across space “she wasn’t alone.” Of course, she couldn’t put a name to what she felt in that moment, and she knowingly had lied to herself for a year, but now she could see it as clear and transparent as she saw his future. She loved Ben from that moment, and she regrets not giving in to her desire when all she wanted was to touch his face and his hair, besides his hand.. maybe if Luke wouldn’t have interrupted her, she would have gathered the courage.

She rests there for a bit and continues the rise to the rock in the temple, where she received her first lesson from Luke, when she understood what the Force was. She touches the cold rock and sighs. It’s a beautiful view, the sunset. She couldn’t say which one is more beautiful, the sunset in the desert or over the ocean.

She stays there quiet and still, looking at the horizon until the night covers the ocean and the island, and there is only darkness splashed with stars, the touch of a light breeze on her skin and the constant crashing of the waves.

“Ok, it’s time to try this,” she says to herself. “Be with me, be with me, be with me…” She’s putting all her strength and soul in this, she can feel that it is draining her energy and she’ll be tired very soon. Suddenly, everything gets sucked into a void of nothing except for his voice.

“I’m with you.”

She knows this is his voice, not a product of her imagination like on Tatooine. She can recognize this bubble she’s in. This is the bond opening.

“Ben?” she shouts back, opening her eyes and losing her focus in the Force, “Ben!” She cries out…but everything is back to normal; the island, the noises, the caretakers, the porgs… She could cry in anger, because he was there and the very next moment he wasn’t, just like in Exegol.

She’s exhausted. She hasn’t been able to sleep or eat properly since she lost him, and she knows it’s useless to try to connect again today but she can’t wait. She’s been waiting her whole life and this isn’t a moment to wait. She laughs out loud to the night. Leia was right, because Ben is somewhere she can reach out, and she’s reaching out to him tonight.

She’s happy, she can’t remember if she’s been that happy recently… or ever.

She reaches again, this time focusing with every particle of herself as if her life depends on the outcome of this very moment. She feels how the bond opens and at first she hears him saying her name like a prayer and then she opens her eyes carefully.

He is there, but not very close to her although she can hear him breathing. He’s floating by the cliff and he’s smiling…and she realizes a tear drops down his cheek.

He’s dressed in black, as always, black plain clothes that cling to his skin. His face is free of bruises or blood or pain. She’s never seen him as beautiful as he is right now. He seems real, not like Leia or Luke or any other force ghost she’s seen. He’s not surrounded by that blue halo.

“Hey,” he says with his deep voice. She walks to the edge of the cliff, but she can’t reach him. She can’t understand why he isn’t getting closer to her, but he’s looking at her with such love and intensity in his gaze that she can’t make herself angry with him. ”I’ve missed you, Rey. This time apart feels like a lifetime and like a second, it’s strange. But I am so happy to see you one more time. I wasn’t sure if it was possible or if it was allowed, but I begged the Force to see you just one more time even if I didn’t deserve it, and now you are here. You are a gift.”

“Ben, come closer,” she laughs, but he’s stood in the same place and shakes his head. “I don’t want to play now, I miss you too much. Come to me please.” He walks a couple of steps but then stops.  
“I can’t Rey,” he says, extending his hand to show her. His hand is touching something, like a fluid transparintel that bends to the touch but doesn’t break.

“What is this?” she asks extending her hand too touching the same invisible barrier.

“We are in different dimensions,” he says with a sad voice but a smile on his lips. “And apparently our bond is broken and we can pass through to each other’s dimension. You’re alive, I am not. I guess it’s the best for everyone, but the force was compassionate and let me see you again one more time. It’s all I could hope for. One last time.”

“Are you joking, Ben? I haven’t finally find you for this to be it,” she asks, not believing what she’s hearing. He doesn’t answer, just shrugs. “Really, Ben?” she challenges him again.

“Rey, I don’t know what you want me to say! I just want you to have a future without me I want you to be safe and happy. It is all I’ve always wanted, even when I offered you my hand in Snoke’s throne room. I did believe at that time that joining me would make you happy and I knew you would have been safe because I was there to protect you, but of course I was wrong. Believe me when I say you are all that has ever mattered to me. My life without you wasn’t worthy. That’s why I healed you, why I brought you back.”

“That was selfish then Ben. Maybe I’d rather be dead that be forced to live a life without you too. Did you think that could be the case?” She spits.

“Don’t say that. You deserve better than me. Your friends need you, the galaxy needs you. Nobody needs me,” he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice.

“I do. I need you.”

“Rey, listen…” but she interrupts him because she’s tired of being defeated and she’s tired of being alone. No, not alone, of being without him.

“No, no. You are listening to me now, Ben Solo. You came to Exegol to fight by my side after I stabbed you. You saved my life and you kissed me back! If you didn’t want me to know you love me as much as I love you, you shouldn’t have done those things…. ugggh Ben don’t you understand? I would do anything to bring you back, to have you by my side. Kriff! I even wish you were still the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy, a dark Lord, if that would mean you were alive! I lost hope in us once, after The Death Star fight, I did! But you didn’t, and now I am not giving up. I want to kiss you and I want to be in your arms. I want to feel your warm breath on my neck and I want to run my fingers through your hair. Because we deserve it Ben. We deserve all of this and a happy life together and no one, Jedi or Sith, is going to stop me.”

“That isn’t going to happen and you need to accept that I am gone, but I’ll be always with you. Rey, I love you,” and he starts vanishing in front of her.

“No!” Rey shouts, extending her hand to catch his with wild desperation. That stops him for a minute and places his hand, touching hers over the thin barrier that separates them. So near but so far, and then he fades slowly into a shadow, melting into the starry night.

She gasps because she has seen that shape touching her hand before… through a mirror.

She turns around with urgency and runs in the dark, guided by the force. The cave! The cave is the answer, she knows it, she can feel it in her bones.

When she reaches the hole, she hears it humming to her again, calling her name and she dives into the ocean without hesitation. The water is kriffing cold, and her lungs need some seconds to expand again. She kicks her legs and moves her arms the best she can to keep her head afloat. She can’t swim, she’s just doing this out of instinct, but she manages to get herself out of the water onto dry soil. The atmosphere is dense, just as she remembers, loaded with static electricity and raw force crowding through her being. She walks to the mirror and looks at the clouded surface, no reflection or shadows yet.

“Let me see him…let me see Ben...please” she says while stretching her arm, without touching it.  
She tightens her lips and holds her breath, when two shapes walk towards the mirror, towards her. Like last time, the two silhouettes melt into one, who stands and towers above her. She understands now the meaning. The mirror was showing her she was part of a dyad; two that are one. Last time she saw her reflection because she didn’t want to acknowledge her own shadow, her other half. This time when she touches the mirror, she waits for the shadow to imitate her and when it does, when they are touching across the glass, she sees him, for real in front of her. The mirror between them has disappeared, her surroundings have disappeared. They are suspended in the sky, and his smile for her is more radiant that the constellation where they are. They are walking over the stars.

“You are here,” he says.

“I am here,” she responds.

Rey removes her hand from his to hug him but in that moment everything goes back to what they were before touching. She is in the cave alone and he is behind the mirror, although she can only see his shape.

Tentatively she repeats her actions, and so does he, and when their hands touch through the mirror, it happens again. This time, she laces her fingers with his, and he holds her by the waist. Both in sync.  
“I guess we have to been touching each other for this to happen,” she smiles at him sweetly.

“Hmm,” he whispers as acknowledge while bringing her near to his body and resting his forehead with hers. After a few seconds he says with his velvet voice, “very convenient.”

“I still don’t believe this is happening,” she laughs, a genuine laugh, a happy laugh.

“Let me show you then,” he says lowly in her ear, before kissing a sensitive spot on her neck, a moan escaping her mouth.

He moves the hand that is in hers to her cheek now and brings her face to his very slowly, inch by inch until she feels his lips on hers and his tongue at the entrance of her mouth, and she opens it. Ben doesn’t miss one second and starts kissing her, devouring her, pressing her tightly to him, not letting her go till she has to move to breathe again.

“Eager, are we?” Rey teases him, and she can feel a smile forming on his face.

“Rey…you,” he replies, kissing her again “have… no … idea” he manages to say between a trail of kisses down her jaw. “You… don’t know … what you do to me.”

“Ha!” Rey exclaims a bit irritated “What has changed between when you resigned to let me go an hour ago and now?”

“You,” he says, breathless. “You. You, always change everything Rey. Your faith in me, in us, in what this is. You, my brave scavenger, is what changes my world, what changes me and I’m not letting you go again.”

“That is a good answer, Ben Solo,” and he laughs. “And now what?” Rey asks more to him than to herself. Because she could live happily in this place between two worlds, beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing, walking the stars, where they can always find each other.

“I know you know, Rey…the force bond is back.”

She smiles and nods, before kissing him again. Because she does know how to bring him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it! This was a story I had in mind since I saw TROS... like most of us, I had my own headcanon on what's next, because there's no way these two are going to be apart for too long. They are soulmate , a dyad , two that are one in the force. They will find each other again.
> 
> I might extend it with a trip to Exegol, let me know if you're interested!
> 
> Kudos and comments make my day and I really need them since my country is facing a lockdown due COVID-19, so don't be shy and say hello :-)
> 
> Thanks!


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